The early Marx

History of Economic Thought // Spring 2025

Prof. Santetti

marcio.santetti@emerson.edu

Timeline

Timeline


Karl Marx (1818—1883)

  • 1818: Born in Trier, state of Prussia.

  • 1835: Entered law school, University of Bonn.

  • 1836: Transferred to University of Berlin.

  • 1839: Switched to Philosophy, defended his thesis (on Greek philosophy, U. of Jena) with the goal of becoming a university lecturer.

  • 1841: Journalism career: Deutsche Jahrbücher and Rheinische Zeitung.

  • 1842: First meeting with Friedrich Engels.

  • 1843: Marriage to Jenny von Westphalen.

  • 1843: Moves to Paris; founds Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbücher.

  • 1844: Publication of Introduction to A Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and writes Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts.

The historical background

The historical background


Germany vs. France and Britain


French and Industrial Revolutions


Germany’s backwardness (aka “anachronism”)

The historical background

Intellectual influences

Intellectual influences

Georg W.F. Hegel (1770—1831)

The Phenomenology of the Spirit (1807)

Intellectual influences

Georg W.F. Hegel (1770—1831)


  • Method: Dialectics.

  • Approach: Idealism.


  • The driving force of History lies in the realm of ideas.

  • Religious alienation (faith) is a source of humanity.

Intellectual influences

The young Hegelians

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804—1872)

The Essence of Christianity (1841)

Intellectual influences

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804—1872)

  • Religious differences as an impediment to German unification.

  • “God, as the Father, is the generator, the active, the principle of masculine spontaneity […]” (p. 71)

  • “The Father is a truth only where the Mother is a truth. Love is in and by itself essentially feminine in its nature. The belief in the love of God is the belief in the feminine principle as divine. Love apart from living nature is an anomaly, a phantom. Behold in love the holy necessity and depth of Nature!” (p. 72)

  • “Thus the material of baptism is water, common, natural water, just as the material of religion in general is common, natural humanity. But as religion alienates our own nature from us, and represents it as not ours, so the water of baptism is regarded as quite other than common water ; for it has not a physical but a hyperphysical power and significance.” (p. 236)

  • Atheism as a solution.

Why Political Economy?

Why Political Economy?


February 1844:

  • Publication of Introduction to A Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right.


Structure of Feuerbach’s system, but with different elements.

Why Political Economy?


Summer 1844:

  • Writing of the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (only coming to the general public in the 1930s).


The central theme: alienated (estranged) labor.

Next time: Later writings